NX Redux

Custom firmware for retro handheld gaming devices. It keeps the minimal, distraction-free interface — pick up, pick a game, play — while deliberately extending what sits underneath: standalone emulators, netplay, achievements, media tools and more. Those extras stay out of the way until you ask for them, tucked into the Tools and pause menus (and hidden entirely in simple mode).

NX Redux is a fork of NextUI by LoveRetro, which itself descends from MinUI.

📖 User documentation: nxredux.com — installation, guides for every feature and a full settings reference, illustrated with screenshots from the device.

The video below demonstrates the features. It was recorded on an earlier release, so the current UI looks a little different and several newer features are not shown; the documentation site has up-to-date screenshots.

• Trimui Brick — firmware 1.1.1
• Trimui Brick Hammer — firmware 1.1.1
• Trimui Brick Pro — firmware 1.1.1
• Trimui Smart Pro S — firmware 1.0.1 or 1.0.2
• Trimui Smart Pro — firmware 1.1.1 (It should work in theory, but I can't confirm it because I don't have the device to test)

⚠️ SD cards are built per device model. Each release is packaged for a specific device — resolution, OSD assets and other layout differ between models — so a card set up for one device (e.g. the Brick) must not be moved into another (e.g. the Smart Pro S). To carry saves, save states, settings and (optionally) ROMs across devices, use the built-in Device Sync tool instead of swapping cards.

⚠️ Update the stock firmware first. NX Redux relies on system libraries the stock firmware ships, so older firmware breaks some features. Install the official TrimUI firmware version listed above for your device before installing NX Redux.

NextUI keeps a deliberately tight core and pushes extras out to paks. That's the right call for a project many people contribute to — but it's not what I wanted to build. Some features only work the way I want them to when they live inside the system: sharing state with the core, drawing with the system's own UI, owning the input path. So this fork builds them in, takes on the maintenance cost that comes with that, and answers to no roadmap but mine.

Every feature below has its own page on nxredux.com; the list here is the map, not the manual.

Core experience:

• Redesigned UI with consistent styling across the system, slide transitions, scroll indicators, progress overlays and confirmation dialogs.
• Settings rewritten in C, with the former LED Control, Input, Clock and Updater apps merged into it — Settings reference.
• Game Switcher lists only resumable games by default, with art fallback and an auto-save on quit so every game resumes where you left it.
• Main menu shortcuts for frequently used tools and games, optional hiding of the emulator folders, and START to search.
• A game context menu: collections, pin to main menu, rename, delete, remove from recents, refresh, per-game emulator options.
• Simple Mode — a PIN-protected, distraction-free menu for children or casual users.

Available when you want it (Tools, pause menu and OSD):

• On-Screen Display reachable anywhere: mute, brightness, motor, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and LED toggles, screenshot and screen recorder, system monitors, music controls and power off.
• Music Player with background playback, internet radio and hi-res output on USB DACs, plus a Media Player with audio and subtitle switching.
• Bundled standalone emulators for Nintendo DS, Nintendo 64 and Sega Dreamcast, all with the system's in-game menu, save states with screenshots, USB-C and Bluetooth audio, and sleep on the power button.
• PortMaster and PSP installable on-device from the Xtras Store.
• Netplay for local wireless multiplayer: press Y on a supported game to host or join, with GB and GBA link-cable support, lockstep netplay for the other cores, and N64 and Dreamcast sessions.
• RetroAchievements with full offline support — earn achievements offline, sync later, and browse your whole cached library on the device. Softcore only by design.
• Cheats downloaded straight from the libretro cheat database, no PC needed.
• Device Sync for saves, states, settings and ROMs across devices, Artwork Manager for box art, and a redesigned Game Tracker.
• Nintendo / Xbox button layout, joystick calibration, and Developer options with SSH, sleep control and debug logging.

Under the hood:

• nextui.c split into focused components (game list, game switcher, search, launcher, image loader and more) and minarch split into ma_* modules, adapted from carroarmato0's work in NextUI #721.
• A reusable UI component library in common/ui/, one component per file, wired into every app through a single ui.mk fragment.
• Sink-aware audio sample-rate negotiation across music, radio, video and every emulator, with automatic rerouting when a USB-C DAC or Bluetooth device connects — see Audio settings.
• clang-format tooling with enforced code style, and per-platform release zips (brick / brickpro / smartpro / smartpros).

Removed or consolidated:

• The Remove Loading tweak now happens once in the install script instead of through a resident app.
• The Battery history feature is gone — it needed an always-on daemon logging to the SD card, while the status bar already shows the charge level.
• Hardcore RetroAchievements mode is intentionally omitted — NX Redux is not an RA-approved hardcore emulator, so leaving it out keeps your account safe.

Emulators that aren't bundled can be added: PSP through the on-device Xtras store, anything else by copying a community pak into the /Emus folder on the SD card. See Additional Emulators.

⚠️ Community paks (including the PSP pak) are built for NextUI, not for NX Redux. They generally work, but they are not developed, maintained or supported for NX Redux — please don't report NX Redux-specific problems to their developers.

This project is a derivative of LoveRetro/NextUI, forked while NextUI was licensed under GPL-3.0.

NX Redux now develops independently. NextUI has since moved to the PolyForm Noncommercial 1.0.0 license, which is not compatible with this project's GPL-3.0 — so newer upstream changes are no longer merged, and NX Redux continues from the GPL-3.0 codebase it forked.

NX Redux is developed with the help of Claude, Anthropic's AI model. The maintainer's own contributions since the fork — features, fixes and this documentation — are written by Claude from the maintainer's requirements and feedback, then tested on real hardware and reviewed before shipping. This does not cover the inherited NextUI and MinUI code or other people's contributions. Full details on the disclaimer page.

• ro8inmorgan, frysee and all contributors for developing NextUI
• clintonium-119 for the original RetroAchievements integration in NextUI that our offline support is built on
• carroarmato0 for the minarch modularization that the ma_* split here is based on
• sinedied for the shaders that were originally proposed for NextUI in LoveRetro/NextUI#796.
• KrutzOtrem for the overlays
• timbueno for the Artbook theme
• anthonycaccese for the Artbook artwork
• ben16w for the Minui-Portmaster

Licensed under GNU GPL v3.0, the license NextUI was under at the time of the fork.

All original copyrights are retained. Modifications in this repository are also distributed under GPL-3.0.

See the LICENSE file for details.

NX Redux is an independent fork and is not affiliated with the original NextUI project.